This comparison is not relevant because building a house requires a period in which you have a foundation but no usable living space, but in Wasteland 2 this is not necessary. You do not need to work your way from 4 INT, through 5, 6, and 7 before you hit 8, because you can just select the value of 8 straight-out. You'll have to lower some other attribute to do so, but when you raise those during play, every point of them will give some benefit. Other attributes have no "interim periods" of delayed gratification.

Again, the issue isn't whether it's potentially possible for points invested in interim to pay off, it's that doing so is always the wrong choice that has permanent ramifications even after it's paid off.

My point was about gameplay after character generation. You are saying that starting out with maxed INT lets you sink later points into skills that give bonuses every level; where any other choice cripples the PC where intelligence is a priority. That sounds like a design flaw.

Fallout had a similar one where the game let the player reassign the bonus stat points from the Gifted trait; giving 7 bonus stat points that could be stacked in any attribute.

My point was about gameplay after character generation. You are saying that starting out with maxed INT lets you sink later points into skills that give bonuses every level; where any other choice cripples the PC where intelligence is a priority. That sounds like a design flaw.

I assume by "maxed INT" you mean INT at a breakpoint, i.e., 1, 4, 8, or 10, in which case, yes, that's correct. Not every character needs a whole stack of skills, after all, but every character needs not to spend points on attributes that don't give them a benefit.

Thus, yes, the current design is flawed. That's the point of this thread.

If it was intentional, then they intentionally created a 4-point range masquerading as a 10-point one. This seems like a squandered opportunity.

The intent was to discourage having skill mules, but if you are going for one you have to make long term planning with downside consequences.

Which is fine. You can implement a downside for loading up on skills without having "dead zones" where attributes provide no incremental benefit. The issue here is not that Intelligence is ineffective overall, it's its "plateau" design that makes scores 2-3, 4-7 and 9 completely pointless.

Fallout had a similar one where the game let the player reassign the bonus stat points from the Gifted trait; giving 7 bonus stat points that could be stacked in any attribute.

This is beside the point...

But of course?

but that's not a design flaw. There's no difference between rearranging one's attributes before or after selecting the Gifted trait.

I'd say that it likely is. The description for the trait states that in exchange for a -10% penalty on all skills, and -5 skill points per level, that each stat is +1. But as it is, the points can be arbitrarily reassigned. That one trait can be used to raise any two stats to 10, and a third to 7. 7 is all that is needed to wield miniguns without penalty, and a 10 for intelligence would seem to negate the negative skill point penalty (by reducing it to what it was before taking the trait). That doesn't make sense, and it doesn't match the description.

To make it worse... Fallout allows one to take both Gifted and the Skilled traits. This describes a contradiction. Gifted states that the PC hasn't studied much, and relies on innate talents, while Skilled states that the PC has studied quite a lot; and adds points to all skills (more than negating the -10 from Gifted).

I'd say that it likely is. The description for the trait states that in exchange for a -10% penalty on all skills, and -5 skill points per level, that each stat is +1. But as it is, the points can be arbitrarily reassigned. That one trait can be used to raise any two stats to 10, and a third to 7. 7 is all that is needed to wield miniguns without penalty, and a 10 for intelligence would seem to negate the negative skill point penalty (by reducing it to what it was before taking the trait). That doesn't make sense, and it doesn't match the description.

Since it is possible to have two attributes at 10 and one at 7 without the Gifted trait, I'm going to assume you mean that Gifted characters can have two attributes at 10, one at 7, and the others at 5. Without Gifted, they would have two attributes at 9, one at 6, and the others at 4. That sounds like a +1 to each attribute to me. Now, you can select the Gifted trait and then set or change your attribute points, and that's totally fine, just it is to change your attributes after selecting Chem Reliant, Fast Metabolism, or any other trait. The bonus from Gifted is still a +1, and you can see this is try to pick Gifted and try to reduce any attribute to 1 - you can't. Its minimum is 2, because that minimum is really 1+1.

By the same token, those skill points you get at IN 10 don't negate the Gifted penalty, because without Gifted, your IN would be 9 (and getting eight points per level more than 10-with-Gifted), not 5.

To make it worse... Fallout allows one to take both Gifted and the Skilled traits. This describes a contradiction. Gifted states that the PC hasn't studied much, and relies on innate talents, while Skilled states that the PC has studied quite a lot; and adds points to all skills (more than negating the -10 from Gifted).

In this, this flavour text does imply a contradiction, but in my opinion, it's not a big deal. It's just semantics. From a gameplay perspective, you're just trading attribute points for perks instead of skills. Even then, you're still coming out behind, since this Gifted/Skilled combo still leaves you with 5 fewer skill points per level (in Fallout 1) or lower starting values for all of your skills (in Fallout 2).

I sort of wandered into XP descriptions, because attributes bonuses act the same. Reach the level of doing the thing or it doesn't happen. If you can only find the amulet on INT 5, not INT 4, for example.
Zombra- I considered nerfing the badgers but didn't know enough about the game's file tree and decided to just work harder at it.
Gizmo- "I don't get (understand) the perception that it is a kind of suffering. When someone wants to build a house, they first build the foundation; it's a lot of work, and you can't live in it, but it enables the next requirement"
Ah, now you are thinking like an engineer. You need to be thinking like a crooked businessman. Everyone's out to get you, so sell them the gun but not the bullets then nitpick the lack of the word bullets.
Not everyone's goals are the same as yours, or the goals you tell them to have, or goals you'd think aren't crazy, etc. (Serpoids!) From some points of view, having less then the number they thought they'd get means that the adventure party is hobbled. How are you going to find the toaster if you can't put your DEX up? To them they wen't supposed to get 1 points they were supposed to get 2 points. So it's going to take forever to get 100 points.